


Inertia

by thewhitestag



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:46:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhitestag/pseuds/thewhitestag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months in which Dick feels like a creeper, Damian gets frustrated, and Colin is too red-headed for his own good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inertia

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Inertia 惯性](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7211501) by [Calardes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calardes/pseuds/Calardes)



Dick can hardly contain himself, bouncing a little in his seat as the hatch to the Batmobile whooshes shut. He waits, making sure Colin is safely inside St. Aidan's before easing the vehicle back into motion.

“That was fun. Wasn't it fun, Damian? We need to do that again sometime.”

Damian rolls his eyes so hard that his entire head is caught in the wave of motion, but his feigned apathy falls flat; his cheeks are still flushed with the adrenaline of patrol. “I suppose it was an interesting change of pace.”

Of course, the fact that Dick and Damian are working together again is itself a novel development.

Dick had initially refused when Bruce approached him with the request, asking him to take up the role once more. Only two months, the man had said, just long enough that he could set up a new Batman Inc. project in Asia. But time hadn't been Dick's main concern. He'd moved on, back to his own identity, out of the manor and into his real life at the heart of the city. And yet in the end, he had agreed.

Dick hasn't returned just for Bruce, or for the myth. Dick knows two or three well-publicized patrols would easily keep the fear of the Bat alive. And he hasn't returned for Gotham's sake, because he protects this city all the same as Nightwing.

He's come back to the cowl because there's a Robin who'd be alone without a Batman. And if there's anything Dick will trade for cape-less freedom, it's having a partner.

This partner.

“You guys fight well with each other. Do you and Abuse usually team up?”

Damian doesn't answer straightaway, watching Dick from the side of his vision, appraising. “Once or twice a month,” he finally admits. Then adds, “Unofficially.”

Dick laughs, immediately knowing the source of the boy's hesitation.

“Does Bruce even know you two are friends?”

Damian doesn't answer, just looks out the window, resting his chin on his hand. But Dick is used to being shut out and persists.

“Damian Wayne and his dirty little secrets. A sordid life for the newest Boy Wonder,” he jokes, tapping on the steering wheel. He gears the vehicle into autopilot mode, and looks back at the shrinking silhouette of St. Aidan's, framed by the back windshield. “That kid,” he adds, shaking his head. “So damn cute.”

Dick wonders if he imagines the way Damian's spine stiffens for just a second. The air in the Batmobile thickens, and Dick feels suddenly like a trespasser on a stranger's grounds.

Damian pulls his foot up onto the seat and primly adjusts his shoelace. “Is he,” he says, casually.

And Dick is silent after that, thinking about the way that Colin giggles when he tugs on Damian's arm—how Damian lets him, however reluctantly. The way the kid says _Robin_ , like he's still starstruck even after all this time. And then turns pink beneath the freckles.

 

* * *

 

 

The next week of patrol continues with a moderate level of action. Enough to keep them on their toes, but so far no major catastrophes. Colin joins in again on a Tuesday, helps bag an organ thief.

On Thursday, Damian gets a laceration across his forearm from a scythe-wielding henchman, severe enough to require stitches; Dick tries to convince him to wait a few days, at least to the point that they can be certain the wound won't reopen. He reminds the teen that with all of his bio-enhancements, it's a much shorter wait than a normal human would have to endure.

Damian, the vindictive little fiend, only agrees to stay grounded upon the stipulation that Dick not go on patrol either.

“Great idea,” Dick chirps. “We can take the opportunity to spend some special bro time together!”

The response should have been expected. Dick nearly gets his fingers smashed when Damian slams his bedroom door shut, planning to barricade himself in, perhaps for the duration of the entire weekend.

Dick tries turning to Alfred, even offering to help the man as he tidies the pantry; this eventually leads into a rather embarrassing expulsion from the kitchen, after a mishap ending with broken glass and a gallon of pickles spilled over the marble tiles.

Which leaves Dick alone and severely bored down in the cave on a Friday night.

He spends at least an hour playing an online Flash game, and then a good fifteen minutes constantly replaying a video of an adorable beagle puppy trying to eat a burrito bigger than itself. At one point he actually tries calling Bruce, because even the most awkward of small talk would be a welcome distraction, but the man is incommunicado as he had told Dick he would be.

Eventually Dick turns back to the Batcomputer, running through the system settings.

And that is when he finds a weak spot in the security.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

He pushes out of his slumped position, leaning forward onto the console. Finally a little excitement.

A smirk pushes at his cheek. However much training and research Bruce put into his computer engineering skills, he still can't match Dick's talent at hacking. Even Tim has managed to surpass their old man by now. Smugness fades to worry, though, once he realizes how neatly the program has slotted itself into the existing network.

It is some kind of signal blocker, a smokescreen, set to cover specific physical spaces—blocking what, Dick still has yet to discover. It could be anything really, some remote-controlled automaton, or perhaps a bomb. But when he overlays it onto the manor blueprints, his worry turns into full-blown panic.

“Shit,” he whispers.

The smokescreen perfectly maps onto Damian's bedroom.

Frantic, his mind immediately shoots to Talia—Dick had done all he could to avoid contact after the mind-control episode, not wanting the boy to ever be coerced into that kind of danger again. And more than that, Dick couldn't stand to see how broken Damian was after each encounter.

But it's been years since he's played Batman to this Robin, and who knows what might have happened on missions since then. And it's not that he doesn't trust Bruce, but maybe the man let something slip through, and Dick's shaking fingers are clacking rapidly against the keyboard to pierce this electric fog.

The design of the rogue program is clunky but robust, and even if Dick is a hacking genius, it still takes him about twenty minutes to get around it with some stealth; he needs to make sure to keep his own presence as invisible as possible. He doesn't want to trigger any traps, not when it might hurt Damian. By the time he cracks it, he's already expecting the worst, heart pounding.

There may be a fail-safe that will harm Damian if he doesn't comply, maybe something that will harm him anyway, regardless of his performance. And likely Damian is already under its effect, already being hurt right now, and Dick has been too stupid to notice.

But what he finds has his fingers freezing, joints of his knuckles locking.

“Shit,” he whispers, for the second time.

Porn. Gay porn in particular. And lots of it.

Dick mentally backtracks to what exactly this program is set to conceal. And it's not hard to connect the dots and realize.

It's Damian's stash. It's the ridiculously elaborate kind of hiding one needs when living under the same roof as the world's greatest detective. It's ten steps beyond deleting the browser history and masking the bandwidth.

After retracing the program more rigorously, to ensure that it can't be co-opted by any real threats, Dick knows he shouldn't look through the boy's cache. Knows he ought to be the mature older brother and leave Damian's secrets in peace. But in fact, it's the older brother in him that makes him do the complete opposite.

He opens a few tabs, scrolling through the selection. It's an eclectic mix, though with nothing particularly shocking. Which makes sense. Damian may have witnessed more than any boy his age ought to, death and torture and all kinds of unsavory criminal activities, and as Robin, he's often been exposed to the kinky pleasures of Gotham's worst. But he's still unexperienced. And he's still trying to figure out this whole sex thing, trying to understand what he might like.

And maybe Dick starts to feel a little guilty, because even if he has already made his guesses about Damian's sexuality, and even if the boy would flout such a rite of passage as coming out, he still has never been forthright to Dick about it. And maybe riffling through the kid's fantasy material isn't just a funny-haha-gotcha-lil-bro violation, but an unwarranted peek into a space so intimate that Dick feels like he's actively trampling all over their relationship.

So yeah, he feels like a sack of shit now. But while his remorse tries hard to smother him, something else is creeping from behind, and it sounds a little like mischief but it's not.

A number of truths suddenly appear before him. _It is nighttime. Damian is currently in his room. It is nighttime, and Damian is currently in his room, Damian who apparently looks at gay porn sometimes_. And the stranger in his head keeps laying down discrete facts, and Dick keeps connecting them, like puzzle pieces.

His hand is hovering across the panel, and it only takes a few short keystrokes before Damian's desktop is mirrored onto one of the monitors, the security system revealing his computer activity in real time. Overzealous moans and dirty talk echo embarrassingly through the cave while a larger than life erection gets sloppily tongued on the big screen; Dick tries to ignore the judging eyes of penny Abe Lincoln and the stuffed T-Rex.

So yeah, Damian is in fact looking at porn at the moment, no big surprise.

But Dick knows that's not really what he is wondering about; that what he wants to know is if Damian is doing what people do when they watch porn. And Dick's pretty sure that the kid probably is, he's probably doing it _right now_ , hand shifting beneath his sweats and—

He slams on the controls, powering down the super computer. Shoves the pieces to the puzzle back inside the box, before the picture can complete itself.

His hands are shaking and there's a throbbing in his stomach, more like beetles than butterflies, and his jaw is trembling in a violent way that makes his teeth clatter every now and then. A strange energy fills his body, like he's made of white static.

He sits in silence for another hour, until Alfred comes to gently scold him into bed.

  
  


 

The next morning, Dick finds himself trying hard not to stare at Damian's crotch, but ends up catching himself at least four times.

Between Alfred's blueberry waffles and the Globe section of the newspaper, Damian does not seem to notice.

Dick feels almost offended by the fact that the universe has not crumbled—not even a little.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Of course, it's not as though Dick is asking for his world to come to pieces around him. It's just that there's a kind of loneliness in feeling so awkward, scrambling to figure this all out, while life continues on without him. There's no one he can really confide to, not about this. And at the same time, he's not even sure what there is to say. But he knows it will pass, as all things do, and jockeys for as close to normal as he can manage.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Damian! Damian!”

Dick's voice echoes through the large antechamber of the manor, his calls reverberating up to the vaulted ceilings and bounding back down to the waxed marble flooring. Alfred emerges from the direction of the kitchen as Dick is shutting the front door behind him.

“Master Dick,” the butler greets, spots of flour dusting his maroon sweater vest. “I see you have decided to wreak havoc upon your arteries.”

“Har har, Alfred,” Dick replies, unabashedly brandishing the pizza box in his hands. “A good slice every now and then never hurt anybody.” He jerks his head toward the stack of envelopes and catalogues in Alfred's hands. “Anything interesting?”

“Mostly junk mail, I'm afraid. And one letter whose recipient name does not match any of Master Bruce's aliases.” Alfred lifts the envelope in question. “An error of the postal system, I believe—unless you have been keeping a secret penpal in Pakistan?”

Dick shakes his head with a laugh when he sees the sweeping script. “You know my Urdu is too horrible to even suggest that, Alfred.”

Alfred places it back in the stack with a sigh. “Perhaps if you had paid more attention during my lessons,” the butler says wistfully.

Dick suppresses an eye roll. “Well, we can deal with it later; for now, help me find Damian so we can eat lunch.”

“Ah, I might direct you to him,” Alfred replies, “except that a certain Mr. Wilkes is visiting.”

“Colin's here!” Dick smiles blithely for a few seconds before registering Alfred's objection. “I don't understand.”

“Surely you might have more productive engagements than babysitting two young heroes?” Alfred chides, dry as ever.

Dick frowns, the box drooping in his grasp. “But Colin loves pizza.”

“This may be true,” the butler answers, “but they have disappeared to Master Damian's room to play video games, and there are few fortresses more impregnable than a teenager's chambers.”

There is little left to debate, but Dick continues to stand awkwardly, almost surly.

A pallor of concern drapes over Alfred's expression. “It is a good thing that Master Damian has made a friend?”

“Of course it is,” Dick replies instantly.

“And there is nothing objectionable to our young Mr. Wilkes?”

Dick smiles a bit, recalling the red-headed boy's reedy voice. The way he speaks to Damian, and doesn't flinch when Damian gets testy. The way he holds his hands behind his back, shy and polite. Even tries to defend Damian against Dick's teasing.

“No,” Dick answers. “He's probably a better friend to Damian than any of the Titans will ever be.”

“A bold assessment,” the butler responds with a nod, “but, allowing myself a mote of boldness as well, I fully endorse your opinion.”

“Thanks, Alfred,” Dick says, sheepish. “Right as always.”

“Furthermore,” Alfred appends, “as a proper guardian, I have asked that they keep the door _unlocked_.”

From the glimmer of the butler's eye, Dick knows he is supposed to laugh, heartily even, but he only feels as though all his organs have accidentally spilled out. He puts a hand to his stomach, as if covering the seam.

“You don't…really think that they…”

The unspoken end to the question dangles in the air.

Alfred falls silent, eyes penetrative. And Dick feels compelled to cover himself, try to stuff his innards back inside of him, but doesn't know what to hide first. He swallows, trying to remind himself that it's a valid concern to be protective in this way.

_And what way_ , the stranger in his head whispers, _is this exactly?_

“Merely a joke, Master Dick,” Alfred finally says, gently, shoes clicking against the tile as he retires to the kitchen.

Dick is left standing alone in the immense antechamber. He looks down at the coupons stapled to the top of the pizza box, and for some reason remembers that today is the 23rd.

“Fall starts today,” he says, looking out into the empty room.

He flips up the top flap of cardboard, but the smell of cheese and grease has become overpowering rather than appetizing, and nausea overtakes his stomach.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dick understands the meaning of responsibility. He continues on performing his duties as the pinch-hitter Batman, with the occasional night spent downtown as Nightwing to make sure he keeps a presence on his own turf.

He often asks Damian how Colin is doing, makes sure that he knows that he's always welcome to invite his friend over to the manor, and that Dick honestly enjoys it when Abuse come along for some crime fighting. There had been a time that Dick wanted so badly for Damian to make friends, had even tried to force it by dumping him at Titan Tower like a wily toddler at kindergarten.

His efforts had failed that time, but Damian has managed to forge his own relationships since. Dick is proud that Damian has connected with someone, comforted to see that the teen's world is expanding beyond enmities and rivalries. Beyond shaky alliances and partnerships.

Dick knows there is no reason to feel forlorn about it. Damian would never leave him behind.

He is mostly certain about that.

  
  


* * *

  
  


In the first week of October, a lazy Sunday afternoon rolls by. Fairly intense sparring sessions in the morning have left an overcast of mild fatigue—an afternoon siesta seems nothing less than perfect.

Dick sinks into his favorite chair, a giant squishy mass of brown leather that manages enough dignity to suit the manor, while providing an almost sinful degree of comfort. He drapes himself over the arms, wiggling back and forth until he works a nice niche for himself.

Damian enters the den dressed down to a pair of grey sweats and an enormous Hudson U pullover hoodie. Dick can't help noticing the smell of soap on the boy's skin.

A raucous laugh track erupts from the TV, characters frantically scrambling in the midst of their black and white sitcom.

Damian slinks to his usual perch atop the backrest of Dick's chair, settling into the almost excessive plush cushioning. He's not the tiny ten-year-old he used to be, but he's still nimble enough to fit his territory with a startling degree of grace. He lays out an encyclopedia-sized volume, flipping crisply forward until he reaches his bookmark.

Dick snakes his hand up, shifting the book to try to get a peek at the front cover, but Damian snatches it away with a scowl.

“You might simply try asking what I'm reading,” he grumbles. “But of course that would be expecting too much from such a dunce as yourself.”

Grayson snorts. “Looks boring, anyway.”

Damian grimaces, but Dick can see the grin behind it and lets himself bask in it. It's a rare luxury. But the moment eventually passes and Dick strains to reach the remote control on the side table, plugging down the volume on the TV.

Damian blinks at him. “Don't lower it on my account. I am trained to focus under any circumstance,” he explains, his mild bragging coming so matter-of-factly.

Dick shrugs, wriggling back into a comfortable position. “I'm not really watching, anyway. I was planning to take a nap.”

“Then why don't you just turn it off?”

“I sleep better with a little noise.”

Damian tuts huffily. “That doesn't make any sense.”

The boy's constant resistance still grates, but Dick receives it with an odd mixture of irritation and fondness.

“It's comforting to me, I guess. The circus was always full of sound. People talking, laughing. Animals everywhere.”

Dick tilts his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Images and sounds flash through his mind. Zitka the elephant trumpeting to the rhythm of a band. The clowns clinking glass bottles together in a toast. His mother leaning out the window, laughing softly; his father chatting back while painting the side of their trailer.

“That was one thing I hated about this place. Such a giant house, but so completely still.” He cocks his head as he remembers. “It would have been awful if I didn't have Alfred. But even then.”

“You were lonely,” Damian observes, then bites his lip and turns back to his book. But Dick can tell from the furrow in his brow that he's not reading the words.

“Very,” Dick responds, and shuts his eyes.

  
  


 

When he wakes up from his nap, the television is still on, lowered volume muffling the news anchors' clear tones to murmurs. It's five or six at the latest, from what he can tell of the light in the windows.

One of Damian's legs dangles down the backrest, his foot settling against Dick's knee. He's still reading his doorstop book, completely absorbed.

And maybe Dick thinks he's still inside a dream. Maybe he just finds a way to ignore his own reason as it rings every alarm in his head. Maybe he just doesn't care.

He reaches forward, fingers curling around the ankle, pulls the limb into his lap. With caution, he glances over to Damian's face, but the teen still seems insulated in the pages of the book, not even noticing when Dick starts to brush fingers over the contours of his foot.

Dick's thumb strokes lazily over the bony jut of ankle, tracing its elegant curves. Damian may be covered in scars, but his boots have done a good job of keeping at least this small part of him safe. As far as Dick can remember, the boy has never broken a bone in either foot, never sprained the joint.

“Grayson,” Damian says. But his voice is so uncharacteristically soft that Dick still does not wake from his dreamfog, only lifts his gaze to Damian's face while his fingers continue massaging soft circles. Damian lays down his book, propping himself up on an elbow.

Dick notes the way his hand strikes a contrasts on Damian's ankle, as if studying the graded steps from lighter to darker, blush to tan. And it is then that he realizes he is stroking Damian's bare leg, thinking about skin against skin, while the teen stares at him in wonder.

A buzzing lightness comes into Dick's head, along with a spreading heat beneath his eyes that inks across to his ears. He slides out of the chair as casually as he can manage, civilly placing aside Damian's dangling foot. Damian sits up completely, face still hauntingly impenetrable, and silent as he pulls down his hood.

“Grayson,” Damian says again. Not an accusation, not angry at all. But Dick can't process a thing.

Dick shuffles out of the room, mumbling some disjointed excuse about having things to do.

  
  


 

Later that night, Dick is back down in the cave, with the stranger in his head that sounds like mischief but isn't. And when he thinks he might recognize exactly what is whispering in his ear, leading him by the hand along this unmapped trail, he turns away and hopes to not see its face.

But he still follows.

He's looking at porn after all, so the voice assures him it is perfectly normal when he squeezes himself through his pants, watching the pathway of Damian's cursor as it hovers over another dirty picture, and clicks.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dick flips through a stack of mail as he eats his lunch, hoping for something to cheer him up. A few days ago, they'd gotten a letter from Tim at Stanford. The letter was somewhat generic—a dutiful report that he's been doing well in his classes and making new friends and having lots of fun. But it still had managed to give Dick some comfort.

Dick misses the kid, but he doesn't dare try writing or calling. Busy with his studies, Tim barely has time to make it to Titan Tower on the weekends, and San Francisco is only a skip away in comparison to the distance from Gotham. He knows Tim would fly back home if he had any clue of how broken Dick feels right now, but it would be unfair to his younger brother, and frankly, even a visit from Tim wouldn't help.

Most of the letters today bring even less solace. They have the official stamped logos of various foundations and trusts, perhaps thanking the Waynes for their funding, or asking for more, but most likely both. Dick pushes the envelopes aside unopened; he has never been very adept with this part of the Bat business.

He is startled from his gray mood by his communicator buzzing at his belt, and is startled a second time to see who is calling.

“Bruce? Bruce! I didn't know you could send a signal from your loca—”

“I'm away doing recon in Karachi. Thought I should check in.” The man's voice is the same deep rasp, with some tinny addition from the transmission.

Dick fumbles with the communicator, switching it to his other ear nervously. “I've been wanting to get in touch with you—”

“Why? What's wrong? Are you okay? Is everything—”

“Everything's fine,” Dick answers.

A short grunt fills in for a relieved sigh. “Good.”

Silence.

“You said there was something you had to tell me?” A pause. “You sound…”

Dick bites his lip. “When are you coming home?”

Another silence.

“Is it Damian?”

“God, no—why do you have to blame him—”

“I'm not _blaming_ anybody, I'm just _asking_ —”

But of course, Bruce isn't exactly wrong in his diagnosis. Regardless, Dick does his best to deflect.

Inevitably the conversation turns to what Bat business Bruce is up to abroad, and Dick asks about the progress. Bruce informs him that their new bunker on the Indian border had been bombed, but reassures a worried Dick that both Stephanie and Cass are fine—that nobody, civilians included, had been anywhere near the blast.

“I don't understand,” Dick says, concerned. “I didn't think anybody even knew about this project— _I_ don't even know exactly where you guys are right now.”

Bruce hums gruffly in agreement. “It's strange. But I have my suspicions.”

A hesitation.

“One thing more, Dick. This set-back means I'll have to extend my stay here.” Bruce pauses, as if he can see the expression on Dick's face. “It will be another month at the most. I know you are…uncomfortable, filling in for me.”

Dick swallows.

“You can do it. You've always been more than capable.”

“Bruce…”

“You sound troubled. You didn't kill anyone, did you?”

A laugh wells up inside of Dick, rising out of his mouth with surprise.

“What? No.”

“That's good.”

And then there's silence again, but this time there is an ounce of comfort riding the signal.

“I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“Okay.” A few nodes of static crackle the line. “Thanks, Bruce.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


October rolls on. The leaves take new color and begin to fall. Pumpkins appear on doorsteps and in lattes.

Meanwhile, Batman and Robin turn into strange doubles of their former selves. It reminds Dick a little of Wally's speeding; the body trailed by its phantom afterimage, where the spectator's eyes are too slow to understand. But in this case, it's the past self that's more physical. They have become their own ghosts, trying to mimic real life as best as they can, before anyone sees that a solid hand will pass straight through them.

Sometimes he does feel a kind of purified elation, the same he'd felt around Damian when the boy was still ten, but he finds it hard to hold onto. It is like the way a person's stomach shrinks during starvation; no organ inside him can handle that much happiness anymore. And so he carries it on the outside, cupped in his hands carefully, knowing that it will eventually spill, or more likely, that he will drop it when he isn't paying attention.

And he has always had trouble finding things he's misplaced.

Today, though, he keeps his happiness clenched in one fist as he climbs the staircase, two steps at a time. He knocks on Damian's door, but finding it unlocked, enters without bothering to be invited in. He doesn't flinch when a dagger flies past, embeds itself in the door frame just inches from his eye.

“You need to quit wrecking the furnishings like that.”

Damian glowers from the bed, rolling over onto his back, languidly. “It's not like we can't afford to fix it.”

“Wonderful financial ethics there,” Dick answers, pulling the dagger out and tossing it onto the teen's desk.

“State your business, Grayson,” Damian drones, “so that I may refuse and the day can go on.”

Oh, the banter. Dick loosens the reins on his tiny spot of happy, letting a bit of it brush his face and leave him grinning.

“I wanted to see if you'd come to the mall with me. Halloween's coming up in a few days and I still don't have a costume.”

Damian narrows his eyes balefully, watching Grayson upside down, head lolling off the edge of his bed. “I have never participated in such festivities and can't see why you would expect any different from me this year.”

Dick leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “Please? Tim used to come all the time!”

“So you need me as a Drake replacement,” The teen scoffs. “I thought my aversion to joining you could not be any stronger, but you always find a way to outdo yourself. I applaud your accomplishment.”

Dick resists pinching the boy's cheeks by the slimmest margin. “Damian, you are _so_ overdramatic sometimes.”

Damian tuts. “You drive me to extreme action, Grayson.” And gives one of his glare-smirks that makes Dick feel all wobbly, even as an acrobat, even as he's leaning solidly against the wall.

“Well, I'm sure that Colin will be dressing up.”

Damian flops onto his stomach and sits up. Like a fire choking the oxygen from the air, their easy conversation suddenly loses its intimacy. Damian's voice goes stiff as he informs Dick. “Colin isn't coming. Not for Halloween, nor any other day.”

“Ah, uh—what?”

Damian turns away, smoothing the bedsheets beside him. An impatient grunt spouts up.

“Do I have to repeat myself, Grayson? We won't have Colin at the manor anymore. I cannot make it any simpler for you.”

A knotted bramble of feelings strikes Dick as he blinks cautiously at the teen. He has so many questions, and Dick has never been afraid to push Damian's buttons. But from the teen's closed countenance, he can tell that no amount of prodding will serve him any good.

He stumbles backwards into the hall, as if being physically repelled.

  
  


At the mall, he weaves back and forth between the shoppers with clouded consciousness. A few times he catches himself inside a store, staring at a sneaker or a video game or a t-shirt in his hands, even though he doesn't remember picking it up. He leaves empty-handed, and only remembers when he gets back to the manor that he was supposed to be buying a costume; he hadn't even tried looking.

Soon, he thinks to himself as he pulls the covers over his head, he'll fix this.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The kids of St. Aidan's are all playing in a grassy lot near the church, watched over by the older orphans who have taken on the jobs of big sisters and brothers. Getting Colin's attention proves relatively simple—the kid spots him almost immediately. He's skilled enough to slip away without much notice; Dick wonders if it's from his experience as Abuse, or as an orphan in Gotham.

A nearby park down the street provides a good place for conversation and the two jump up onto a metal picnic table, feet on the bench.

A quiet shower had passed over Gotham in the very early morning. Now in the afternoon, the city has mostly dried off, but the sky remains gray and the air still carries that after-rain scent. Wet pavement and the dusky sweet smell of fallen leaves. A bitter backtaste like cigarette smoke, or dark roasted coffee. It's an aroma particular to this time of year, deeper and more robust than green showers of springtime.

“Mr. Grayson?”

Dick glances at the boy, trying to convey his seriousness without scaring him.

“Colin. Damian told me that you aren't going to be coming over anymore.”

“No. I won't,” the boy answers. And he seems almost angry.

“Oh.”

Dick clenches his teeth. What is he even doing here? He cares about Damian, and he doesn't want to see him hurt, but trying to mend his relationships for him? What is he supposed to even do? Apologize on Damian's behalf, and then have to go back home to explain it to the teen himself? Force him to make up?

Meanwhile Colin fiddles with a brown button on the front of his overcoat, a knee bouncing restlessly. And eventually, he's the one to break the silence.

“Look, Mr. Grayson, I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but…I think it's really unfair.”

Confusion coils around Dick's stomach as he raises his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

The redhead frowns up at him with all the sternness of a three-week-old puppy, hands balled up into fists. “If I've done anything to upset you, Mr. Grayson, I would have hoped that you would just—”

“Hold on there, kid. Back up,” Dick interrupts with a gesture of surprise. “I never said that I didn't want you at the manor.”

Colin's eyes go impossibly wide.

“Oh, I just—I'm sorry. I thought—”

Dick waits patiently for the kid to calm down enough that he isn't stammering. A few pigeons sidle over nonchalantly, but upon realizing there are no bread crumbs to be had, flap away in a huff.

“Damian told me that we could only hang out and patrol and stuff if you were, um, away,” Colin finally explains. “I thought you were maybe mad at me for something. I don't know. Um.”

Dick considers the slight boy next to him, so deceptively tiny in comparison to his alter-ego.

“So you're still friends?”

Colin nods emphatically.

“It's uh—when you stopped coming over, I thought you two were…fighting, or something.”

“Um, I don't think so?” Colin responds, nonplussed.

“That's—that's good.”

A kind of comfort fills Dick at the realization that Damian and Colin remain on good terms, but that relief quickly makes room for a new anxiety to squeeze in. Because if they are still friends, still hanging out on a regular basis, then why does Damian not want Colin to come to the house? Dick knows that he himself is the problem; that much is obvious. But the details of Damian's motivations remain troublingly murky.

Clearly Damian realizes that Dick has been acting strangely in the past weeks, but Dick has no idea of how the boy has interpreted that strangeness. Perhaps he has had enough, wants to divorce his healthy friendship from one gone rotten.

“Look, Colin, I think I might have…caused a minor misunderstanding. Remember that as long as I'm Batman, you're welcome at the house anytime.”

“Right. Th-thanks, Mr. Grayson.”

The poor kid looks a little shaken up, so Dick gives him a small grin to reassure him, eyebrows raised and head tilted slightly forward, as if they're sharing a secret. Colin returns it with his own sunny expression.

They walk back towards St. Aidan's with relaxed conversation, but before they part, Dick calls out.

“Hey, Colin. You and Damian. Are you two…”

But he can't ask. Doesn't want to know. And if it's true, he'll wait for Damian to let him know himself.

“…never mind. Uh, I'll see you later?”

Colin furrows his brow, but it melts back into a beaming smile.

“Yeah. See you.”

Though Damian's thoughts still remain as mysterious as ever, Dick does feel as though he has reached a tiny smidgen of resolution after talking to Colin. It grants him a bit of cheer and instead of returning to his car, he suddenly feels like staying out and enjoying the day for at least a few more hours. He looks up to the rooftops to gain his bearings, and realizes that he's only a seven-minute walk away from one of his favorite coffee shops.

He begins a brisk walk. Navigating the streets from ground level has always been slightly thrilling. Without his Bat suit, he's just a civilian, and without the penguin suit, few people recognize him as one of the heirs to the Wayne fortune. He's just another person, free to shuffle through the anonymous gray of the city.

At one point, he makes the decision to cut through an alleyway.

He doesn't see, hear, smell, or otherwise detect the presence tracing his trail.

A shadow drops from the fire escape.

Though the attack occurs in less than twenty seconds, and at the time, seems to happen almost faster than he can blink, he will remember it in slow motion. Chopped up pieces of the clock, stretched out into individual sensations.

A worn rubber sole into his left eye as he turns. Then a heel against the side of his face, gashing his cheek against his molars. The taste of blood. Forehead smashing into smog-stained brick. The pain flashing in hot bursts across his face. A blade pricking at the back of his neck.

To have taken him so completely by surprise, this cannot be a simple street-thug. He manages to scramble a hand into his pocket, tapping the emergency code on his cell phone.

When he hears the cracklebuzz of a comm-link behind him, responding to his distress call, he realizes instantly and stops struggling. He turns around to face the point of a shortsword. After a moment, the weapon is sheathed, his attacker trading it for an accusatory finger.

“What are you doing here, Grayson?”

“I came to see Colin, obviously.”

Damian reaches up, yanking on Dick's collar. Dick lets himself be pulled forward, but the momentum suddenly reverses as Damian throws him back against the wall. He slams into the old brick, dusty red fragments breaking loose and trickling to the concrete. His chest spasms, trying to hold onto the air as it is blown out of him, and he tries gasping uselessly for half a minute, sore and helpless. When the breath finally squeezes back to Dick's lungs, Damian's eyes are wide and wild. A deep glacial blue that burns as it freezes.

“You stay away from him, or I'll crush your legs.”

Dick raises his arms. Conciliation. Surrender. Innocence.

“Damian, I don't understand why you won't let him come to the manor anymore. I thought you two were…”

He trails off, feeling an adolescent heat rising to his cheeks. But it's not as if Damian will even notice, not in his fury haze.

“Leave him alone,” he warns. “Stop inviting him to patrol. Just stay away.”

The teen is unyielding as ever and Dick feels the fight in him begin to spark, despite his better judgment. He takes a deep breath, trying to quell it.

“Damian, listen—”

“No, _you_ listen to _me_ , Grayson,” he hisses, jabbing his finger forward in emphasis. “Just because you have some fucking _fetish_ for red hair, does not justify—what the hell are you snickering about?”

He stomps the ground angrily, but it's so unintentionally endearing that it only serves to make Dick laugh harder.

“You think I'm trying to—to _seduce_ Colin?”

A flash of relief and hope plays across Damian's face before molding back to the default rage. But the tips of his ears are beginning to redden from something that isn't anger. Dick chances placing a hand onto the teen's shoulder, expecting it to be shrugged off or worse. For some reason Damian lets it happen.

“We need to sort a few things out, I see. Can we sit down and talk, please?”

They leave the alley and settle themselves on the curb just outside, working class tenement buildings rising up around them. This part of Gotham isn't exactly bustling, and it's even quieter now in the lull between lunch and five-o'clock rush hour. The street is mostly empty, aside from a few pedestrians, pulling their black and gray coats to their bodies in the autumn chill. Dick rests his hands on his knees, trying to explain.

“Look, Damian, I'm not interested in Colin like that. At all. I promise. So if that's what this is all about, then you don't have to worry.”

The teen to his right puckers his face in a way so reminiscent of his younger self that it wrenches Dick's heart with a strange buzzing pain, like the sensation after a numbness.

“You kept asking about him. And inviting him on patrol. And—”

“I was just happy you had somebody to trust,” Dick insists.

Damian pulls his knees up to his chest, staying silent.

Dick takes in a deep breath, trying to prepare himself. He's done fine thus far, and tries to take courage in that.

“I already told him that he's welcome at the manor any time, but I want _you_ to know that if you want to bring your boyfriend—”

Dick hears the sharp intake of breath beside him and tries not to panic.

“Grayson.” The boy's face burns so red Dick thinks there might be heat waves radiating off his cheeks. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I just thought—”

“No.”

“But you two—”

“ _No_.”

Dick shuts his eyes for a moment, trying to gather himself together.

“Damian, I know that you, um…like boys.”

There's no answer, but Damian's head pivots in a stiff arc to face him. And Dick can feel the confession inside him burning its way up his chest.

“I was checking the security system a few weeks back. I caught your signal-blocker.”

A cringe bunches at his stomach, symptoms of embarrassment by proxy, fueled by his own shame.

“I didn't mean to pry! I honestly thought it might've been something dangerous. I'm sorry!”

He's squirming, waiting for the physical assault to resume, but the teen remains still. Damian's still blushing, though it's beginning to fade, his face regaining its usual golden hue. And Dick finds himself staring at that incomprehensible expression, so carefully neutral. It frightens him, he realizes.

When Damian finally answers him, his voice has a forced steadiness, as though each word needs to be weighed and balanced.

“I understand why you did it. And I…don't mind that you know. I would have told you anyway.”

Dick shifts a little closer. “You can talk to me.”

“Yes,” Damian nods, a slow incline of the head. “I know that I can trust you, Grayson.”

Dick wets his lips, an unconscious habit to buy any smidgen of time that he can. This kid is always finding ways to knock the words out of him, leaving him without anything meaningful to say.

He finally settles on a weak, “Okay.”

A crease of determination marks Damian's brow. “I might…'like boys,' as you say. But Colin's just my friend. Not my boyfriend. Neither do I want him to be my boyfriend. And he shares the same opinions regarding his relation to me.”

Dick chuckles. “You're really insistent about this.”

Damian holds his gaze.

“It's important that you understand.”

“Right,” Dick answers, blankly. “Got it.”

Damian blinks at the blacktop a few times before sighing.

“Um, glad we got everything sorted out,” Dick says, even though he feels as though so many loose ends have been left dangling. It leaves a dropping sensation in his stomach that makes even breathing feel like a struggle. But he'll make do with whatever resolution this can bring. Because there are some things that are never meant to be settled. “Let's go home.”

They both get to their feet and Dick brushes off the seat of his pants. A sudden strong breeze sweeps through, tumbling a silver burger wrapper and a few orange leaves across the pavement.

“It's getting chilly,” Dick comments, turning up his collar. “Better zip up.”

Damian scoffs, but his hands seek out the hem of his black track jacket anyway.

“Well, Grayson?”

Dick quirks an eyebrow. “Well, what?”

Damian jerks his head down toward his fingers, holding the zipper outwards as if…

The gesture strikes Dick with a warmth that he suspects might be nostalgia. Except that Damian the ten-year-old would _never_ have let Dick do up his jacket for him, would have willingly caught hypothermia out of principle at the mere suggestion. But here is that same boy, years later, proffering some indeterminate thing that feels like it should be familiar, but isn't quite. He's allowing Dick to take care of him, perhaps on the cusp of even requesting it.

It takes all of Dick's concentration to keep from shaking as he fits the brass pieces together and begins pulling the slider up the path of teeth. He tugs it as far as Damian's collarbones but his eyes continue to travel, trailing up the neck. He is greeted by the sight of Damian's Adam's apple, bobbing as he swallows.

And Dick himself swallows, throat gone distressingly dry.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Without Bruce and Tim, the Halloween party doesn't have the full press and shareholder entourage typical to Wayne family functions; it's reduced to a rather intimate selection of good friends, mostly from the costumed community. Of course, just because there won't be any publicity photos doesn't mean that it is by any means less flashy than usual. The ballroom is decked out in seasonal décor, and with a nearly Gatsby-esque level of ostentation.

Around seven, Colin arrives as the Big Bad Wolf. Damian assures his friend that his costume is truly quite fearsome, while Dick, who had thought Colin was dressed up as a floppy-eared puppy, tries not to snicker.

The champagne flutes keep coming as the night wears on. At one point Dick is tipsy enough to try picking up Colin in all his adorableness, but Damian, dressed rather unimaginatively as an assassin from some video game, jabs at a pressure point on Dick's thigh that nearly has him collapse on the spot.

He spends the rest of the evening with a noticeable limp, but he drunkenly tries to pass it off as part of his costume. Of course it makes no sense at all, because nobody understands what business Harry Potter would have limping. At least two people leave the party feeling stupid because they can't work out whatever clever pun Dick is trying to hint at, though they suspect it might have to do with either impotence or buggery.

From there, life returns to what passes as normal in the Wayne household. Colin is back, sometimes hidden away in Damian's room, but more often than not the boys are in the den where Dick and Alfred can join them. When the ponds at the botanical gardens freeze over, they even take an outing to go ice skating together. Colin splits his lip on the ice and in the middle of the crowd, there's no chance of escaping to take advantage of Abuse's rapid-healing. The boy tries unsuccessfully not to cry and Dick and Alfred coo over him with antiseptic; Damian stands apart awkwardly, not knowing whether he's supposed to comfort his friend or spare his dignity by ignoring the tears.

On the third Sunday of November, Tim appears on the foyer with a duffel bag. Apparently, he'd been able to work out his class schedule so that he could leave for Thanksgiving a week early. Dick finds that excuse somewhat suspect, and hopes Tim isn't slacking off, but he's almost too happy to care. The poor kid seems a little skinny—which immediately prompts Alfred to disappear to the kitchen promising grilled cheese sandwiches—and has a distressing wanness to his face, though he bats away Dick's worried hand grasping his chin.

Tim is crouched over, pulling presents out of his duffel when Damian appears, standing in a doorway, as if unsure whether he is allowed at this reunion. Dick is about to call to him, but is struck silent when he sees Tim beckoning their youngest brother over. Damian strides towards them, the line of his jaw like stone.

Tim holds out a small stuffed cow.

“Um. They were giving these out at the bookstore at school.”

Damian does not react at first, but eventually takes hold of its front hooves, without pulling it out of Tim's grasp. They hold the two ends of the cow tentatively, until Tim speaks again.

“It's…um. Good to see you again.”

Dick manages to hold in a screech at that moment, but spends the rest of the day feeling light as a cloud, literally leaping around the mansion, doing cartwheels and aerials and hand springs, even after Damian gives him a black eye.

It's not that Dick's attraction has faded, nor that the awkwardness has dissolved completely. And maybe Dick still finds himself strangling his feelings back every now and again (and again and again). But life has reached a rather acceptable level of wonderful, and it works.

It works, until it doesn't.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Once during patrol, Dick's grapple misses its hooking point because he was staring at Damian's calves. Damian has to hold him up for a swing, while he recasts the line.

Once during some down time, the boys are in the den watching a documentary on ancient Egyptian royalty. Incest is passingly mentioned and Dick's face burns red hot for the duration of the program.

Once during lunch, Damian leans over to grab the mustard. For some irrational reason, Dick thinks Damian is swooping in to kiss him so he freaks out and falls out of his chair.

And once during a mission, Robin decides he has had enough.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Grayson, this cannot continue!”

Damian slams his hands down onto the dashboard of the Batmobile.

The colder weather inevitably means more activity from the Penguin, but the aging villain has lost much of his creativity. The takedown had been rather standard, to the point of boredom. It's barely half-past two and Batman and Robin are already gliding over the Gotham skyline, giving the city a final sweep before hopefully returning to the manor for an early night. But even with such a simple mission, Dick had had an embarrassing number of slip-ups. Nothing fatal, nothing even close to catastrophic, but definitely inconvenient—and to Damian that might be worse.

“I'm sorry. I…I'll focus harder next time,” Dick apologizes weakly. It's as if they've traded places as mentor and charge.

Damian grimaces.

“It's not just about tonight. And it's not just last night, or the night before that. The last few _months_ , Grayson.”

Dick feels his control stretching taut, thinning out under the tension, ready to snap. He doesn't know how much longer he can keep up lying. And he knows Damian has noticed the pattern of strange behavior, but they've never confronted it so directly.

He wants to rev the engine and speed away, as if he could outmaneuver this conversation if he only flew Batmobile fast enough. Wants to get back to the cave and quit this suit, quit the past ten weeks of his life. Wants to hide away in his loft, where solitude meant freedom and not loneliness.

“I'm sorry,” he repeats. And repeats it over and over in his head, gripping the steering wheel.

“Apologies are not what I need right now,” Damian says, angry but also ragged. Exhausted. Dick feels even more monstrous.

“Don't worry, Damian,” he reassures the teen, trying to manufacture an ounce of cheerfulness. “Bruce'll be coming home soon. He might even make it back by Thanksgiving!”

Damian's annoyance rumbles low in his throat.

“Grayson, are you completely certain Father said he would only be gone for a month longer?”

Dick sighs, imagining his pocket diary in which he's been dutifully ticking off each day. “Yes, I'm sure.”

Damian tuts. “Only a month longer. It's a rather ambitious deadline considering the foundation was blown to bits.”

A knot of irritation begins to grow just behind Dick's forehead. He can't take another argument right now. But then he stops to consider what has just been said. Rewinds his memory and plays back the pertinent conversations before proceeding with caution.

“Damian.”

The boy turns to him sourly. And Dick carefully pares his next words down to as much neutrality as he can manage.

“Damian, I never mentioned what kind of structural damage happened at the new bunker.”

He gets a roll of the eyes in response.

“Alright, I shouldn't have assumed, then. What, was it less extensive than I imagined?”

Perfectly delivered, but Dick still pins his partner to the spot with an incredulous stare. Damian gives one last attempt at nonchalance before giving a tell-tale wiggle of discomfort.

“What did you do, Damian?”

A huff.

“I may have used certain…contacts…from my past.”

“Damian,” Dick warns reproachfully.

“Nobody _villainous_ ,” the teen says in defense, gazing out the passenger side window evasively. “Just a few contractors who can be persuaded with a little…help.”

“How much?”

Damian waves a hand flippantly. “Just a thousand here, a thousand there—I mean, it was only a few blocks of C4, so they wouldn't dare ask—”

“You _bombed a building_ , Damian. Someone might have gotten hurt—”

“Don't disparage my contacts, Grayson,” Damian counters. “I would have cut ties if they couldn't manage to do as simple a task as clearing the area before setting off explosives.”

Dick doesn't know whether to feel amused or angry or disappointed. He mostly just feels tired and confused. And numb.

“Alright, fine,” he concedes. “But why did you do it?”

Damian is silent as he stares out his window and Dick can't tell if he's formulating a new lie or simply ignoring the question.

“If this is some perverse way of punishing Bruce for—”

“It has nothing to do with Father,” Damian cuts in heatedly, turning back to face Dick. “At least not in any direct way.”

Dick squeezes the steering wheel, trying to restrain his impatience. “Then what is it?”

Damian does not answer.

Dick flicks on the controls for autopilot, punching in commands for the vehicle to keep airborne. They'll circle the city all night if they have to. Because however much he's been dreading this conversation, he knows there's more at risk if they can't work it through.

“When Father returns,” Damian eventually enunciates, slowly, frustratedly, as if explaining to a young child, “you'll leave.”

Dick tries to suppress the leap in his chest,waiting for it to deflate so he can answer with appropriate sternness. “This argument again?”

“It's different now,” Damian insists. Then, with more determination, “ _I'm_ different now.”

Dick pulls away the cowl, relinquishing its protection. He may want to hide, but this is not a conversation between Batman and Robin. Damian follows suit, peeling off his own mask with irritation. They stare at one another's bare faces, as if in shock at the reality of this encounter.

The aggressive roar of the engine lends the air a sharpened edge, like the rusted teeth of a circular saw. Dick feels his pulse quickening with an anticipation that only his instinct can detect; his mind races to catch up, but trips and stumbles.

“You honestly can't have expected me not to notice, Grayson,” he begins, slicing straight to the bone with the first cut. “It's truly pathetic what passes for subtlety in your mind.”

Dick's stomach has clenched into a stone, his muscles following suit. A silent scream stays captive inside his lungs because his jaw is locked shut. And Damian continues.

“I know when I'm being watched. And I know when I'm being lied to. Perhaps you find the current state of things to be acceptable, but I hold my quality of life to a higher standard. Which leaves us here, Grayson.”

Dick regains just enough of his faculties to fold his hands into his lap, ready to curl in on himself like the dry husk of a dead insect.

“You want me to open up to you, but you hold back. I have no use for that kind of cowardice. Even if you cannot acknowledge it, Grayson—Grayson, I…”

Damian trails off, but he reaches towards Dick. His hand slides against Dick's chest, up to where the cape sews into his collar, and grips the woven kevlar.

Images from the past season swirl by with frightening clarity. The mysterious letter in Urdu, edges crinkled from travel. The elegant curves of an ankle and the smell of soap. Colin's indignant little face in pseudo-exile, pink beneath the freckles. A pepperoni pizza left uneaten in the fridge. The brass zipper of a track jacket sliding up, up, up. Even the gay porn. Everything converges into the curl of Damian's fingers, as they clasp the black fabric.

Dick's eyes trail from those five digits, over the length of arm to Damian's face. And Dick shouldn't be gazing at the teen's expression like it's the light of the goddamn golden sun, coming up the horizon for him and only him.

“Y-you're certain…” he says, and his breath is shaking, occupying a gray area that might be chuckling, and might be the shiver that ushers in tears. “Even if I tried to argue. Because we're brothers, and best friends, and partners…”

He's babbling, to himself more than anything, and drops his eyes to his lap.

“You're certain,” he repeats, softly.

Damian inclines his head with that special brand of merciless solemnity. Always unrelenting, always unfailing. Like the mandate of autumn that makes trees lose their leaves.

And so it falls to Dick to make his own decision in return.

It is the sheer inertia of his love that propels him. And yes, that is what it is, and he's still terrified but it's staring him down, and this time, he decides, he won't turn aside. It's what has been whispering in his ear every time, something that can be ugly and painful and cruel; but it can also be redemptive, and kind. The stranger that had sounded like mischief had never been a stranger at all, but only wearing a mask that Dick forced upon it. But now, the pretense falters; the mask falls away; Dick is staring into his own face, reflected in the glassy depths of his longing.

He settles one hand against Damian's ribs, the other against the soft skin where Damian's neck rises up to his ear. Damian's eyes widen, and it's hope, and desire, and a violent warning— _Grayson, if you are messing with me_ …But Dick feels so ridiculously close to crying, if anything the joke is on him.

Their faces are just a centimeter apart; Dick can feel the moisture of Damian's breath against his lower lip. And then he closes the distance. Damian responds to the kiss with the same ferocity that inhabits all his actions, but he allows Dick to lead him; he sways to complement, familiar with the man's kinetics after years of fighting side by side, but he also has a fledgling curiosity that Dick would almost call academic. Damian tugs him down by the collar and Dick slides his hands around to the teen's shoulder blades, feeling them shift beneath the muscle as he lifts Damian up into him.

Damian's tongue slips into his mouth insistently, but then remains still, waiting for Dick's cue to show him what to do. It's three parts entitlement, with equal measures of impatience and anxiety; and as always, lingering behind, not nearly so hidden as Damian would like, there is the well of familiar loneliness, which tries to be anger and sometimes succeeds. But altogether it's one hundred percent Damian, and that is what makes everything tingle, what's making Dick moan, what has the earth slipping off its rotation, or is it getting faster?

Suddenly there is a hand, groping at his thigh, moving up higher until it unabashedly slides against his crotch.

Dick jerks back in shock, snapping his head against the side panel of the driver side door.

“Damian!” He feels a mixture of scandal and arousal feeding off one another inside of him, but the latter is winning with overwhelming force.

“I think we're past the whole dinner date ritual, Grayson,” Damian sneers. Then, more playfully, “But if you insist, I can call Pennyworth to order in some Greek, and we can play footsie under the kitchen table while you gorge yourself on the lamb and rice special.”

He'd already started getting hard from the kissing and if anything, the insults and the ridicule make him more excited. But even as they've crossed one momentous line, Damian is ready to crash past the next. As frayed as the last few months have left him, Dick knows he is not so weak as to pretend that he cannot resist. If he does this, he does it with all his awareness. There is no giving in; there is only choosing.

Dick narrows his eyes and bundles Damian into his lap, hands solid against the teen's rear, thumbs pressing into his hips. “Brat,” he hisses, and moves in for another kiss. The buzzing courses through him, the filament of his desire electrified and glowing, its light spreading down to his groin.

Dick can feel Damian's lips mold into a satisfied smirk, while a pair of arms twine around his neck. Dick slips his hands underneath the Robin tunic, but grunts in frustration, pulling his arms back. He uses his teeth to tug off his gauntlets, and pulls off Damian's for good measure. He presses soft kisses against the boy's bare knuckles and Damian swallows at the sight of such bald affection.

“Hurry up, Grayson,” he urges, crotch sliding against Dick's thigh. Dick chuckles, thick in his throat, and nods.

He lets go of Damian's hands, returning beneath the boy's shirt, beneath the kevlar, until it's just skin on skin. He takes the time to simply run his fingers across the warm planes of Damian's torso, moving across the ridges of his ribs. Damian lifts his arms impatiently, and Dick takes the cue, dragging up the top of the costume.

When Dick is finished, Damian does not hesitate to start working on the clasps of the Batman uniform, reaching around the bulk of Dick's body to the hidden seams and hooks underneath the cape. His tongue pokes out the side of his mouth as he concentrates and Dick can't help nuzzling him at the sight of that. He presses their foreheads together, even as Damian curses at him for moving too much. With both their chests eventually bared, Damian guides Dick's hands down to his hips.

At this moment reality threatens to founder. Dick hooks his fingers into the waistband, while Damian lifts up his pelvis. Reality slips, it trembles, and probably even crumbles a little. But somehow it stays intact, as the black leggings come down to mid-thigh. Dick doesn't realize he's staring until Damian squirms, fierce blush catching his ears and blooming down his neck.

Impertinence makes a brief comeback to mask uncertainty. “What?”

Dick gives his most impish grin before sliding down in his seat, until his knees almost bruise against the dash console. He lifts Damian's thighs up over his shoulders, winds his head under the leggings and into the teen's crotch. And then Dick's tongue is laving across the underside of Damian's cock, which twitches against his bottom lip at the sudden attention.

Damian lets out a cry between a gasp and a sigh, as if the breath doesn't know which way to go, in or out; it's all the encouragement Dick needs. He wraps his lips around the head, then inches his mouth further along the shaft, tongue swirling as he goes. Damian grunts, draping himself over the headrest, hissing, _yes, yes, Grayson, yes_ , hips alternately giving feeble thrusts, or just trembling.

Dick keeps working, tongue making eager inquiry into this particular taste of skin, sweat, and precome. He can recognize the scent of this boy all too well, but has never known it like this, so strong and immediate, and Dick sinks entirely down on Damian's length, nose crushing into his pelvis like he'd consume him.

His own hardness aches to be freed, hips fruitlessly thrusting up into the air, but his hands are busy holding Damian up. And anyway, he thinks he might come too soon just from the sound of Damian panting for him, his name mixed among the most obscene curses and promises.

Then Damian's cock gives a tell-tale throb, hot against the flat of his tongue, and Dick pulls off, knowing he would be slaughtered for forcing the teen to finish too soon. Instead he turns his attention to the skin of Damian's inner thigh, nipping on its softness and studying to the changes in the teen's breathing in response, testing with harder bites followed by apologetic licks and kisses.

“So,” he teases, “how am I doing?”

He fully expects a full verbal assault, likely with hair-pulling or even a sharp smack, but instead Damian tugs against his shoulder. He waits for Dick to sit up again before settling back into his lap.

“W-what about you?”

The teen pulls open the waistband of his tights and reaches in. Dick tries to keep from bucking up—as much from the sensation as the confirmation that, _unngh, yes he is a lefty_ —when Damian testily circles his grip around the shaft.

“Wait,” Dick says, holding the teen's wrist, until he retracts his hand. Damian furrows his brow anxiously, but Dick places a short kiss against his Adam's apple in reassurance. The teen relaxes, weight sinking further into Dick's lap.

Dick cradles Damian's neck with one arm, wraps the other beneath his waist, and flips them over so that the younger is beneath him. Dick finally strips off his own tights, bunching them clumsily and kicking them off his feet. He nudges against Damian's knees, urging the teen to spread his legs wider, and lowers himself down, pressing their cocks flush against one another.

Damian's breath stutters and he tries to cover it with a snarl. The boy rolls his hips up experimentally and Dick grinds down in responds.

“You can touch now,” he says.

Dick tries not to feel smug when Damian decides to use both hands to hold their cocks together, or when the boy blushes at seeing how much more growing he has to do if he wants to catch up. But the vanity quickly evaporates with the Damian's eager strokes, clumsy, but learning quickly how to keep harmony with the other's body.

Dick can sense when Damian gets more comfortable, palms warming against bared skin, hips rocking with skilled rhythm. He begins to explore more, teasing up and down their shafts, massaging their balls, rising up to push back Dick's foreskin, rubbing a thumb against the glossy slickness at the head. Dick shivers at the sudden assault on the sensitive tip.

Damian's grip is firm, but not confident, and it's not hard to sense the genuine concentration that the boy is putting into the activity. And Dick realizes it's not just about wanting to be familiar with sex, but wanting to be familiar with _his_ cock in particular.

The thought shoots straight from Dick's head to his crotch, hot burning sparks, and he thrusts with a sudden roughness. Seeing the reactions he's causing, an indeterminate sound escapes from Damian's mouth, a little like a laugh, but with the velvet sheen of a moan.

Dick's hands have been busy, too. He has roamed almost everywhere across the boy's body, caressing against his chest, nails grazing over a nipple to elicit a hiss. Running along the defiant angle of his jaw, cradling the curve of his neck. Snaking behind the boy, feeling the knobbles of vertebrae strain against rough stitchscars. Returning to his front to trace the long scar running down his abdomen.

And then Dick's hand dips down to where he's been wanting to explore, bypassing their cocks, frisking over Damian's balls for a bit before swooping under and massaging the skin beneath them. And finally presses his fingertips against that tight little place.

A yelp of surprise erupts from Damian's lips before he cuts it off halfway, trying to play brave, but Dick's already whispering little reassurances, because yes, he's always stretching this boy's limits but only when he knows he's ready, so _don't worry_ and _not tonight_. And it scares Dick, as he presses his thumb against that taut ring of muscle and heat, that he's thinking in terms of ' _when'_ , because an ' _if'_ shouldn't even be on the table.

Nonetheless, Dick finds himself transfixed, digits fluttering around it, even pinching here and there; then with his index finger experimenting more earnestly, more roughly, just barely teasing inside before pulling back out, and then doing the same with his middle finger. The skin is flushing in protest from being handled in a way it's never known, and Dick can't stop staring until Damian starts making these little grunting sighs.

Dick presses his lips to the corner of Damian's mouth, like he's drinking in the boy's breaths. He commits the lines of that furrowed brow to memory, the way the ice-fire in those blue eyes continues to rage. The boy's grip around their cocks alternates between a loose fondle and an almost painful vice, his concentration breaking and focusing everything into the jerking of his hips.

“Guh-Grayso-uhn…”

His voice is tight with warning. Damian lets out a rough shudder, clumsily trying to push his lips against Dick's. Dick complies, meeting the kiss as he feels the warmth spurt against his stomach.

He pushes back to see—absolutely has to take in the sight, the teen's thighs spread open for him, chest rising and falling with his satisfied pants, eyelids fluttering.

Dick begins stroking himself, eager to finish and add to the come already spilled over Damian's torso, but his hand is snatched away. Damian presses it against himself and Dick, incredulous, can feel the boy actually starting to get hard again beneath his palm.

It's just like Damian to try to rub off a second one so soon after, doesn't care that Dick hasn't had his first, won't even let him have the comfort of his own hand in the meantime. Dick chuckles, soft and low.

Damian just sports his little devil smirk, eyes gleaming possessive and chit jutting out at the angle of a challenge, and Dick realizes the boy is _performing_ for him, that he knows how much his old mentor truly savors all his backtalk and cheekiness. And of course only Damian would try to communicate in such a roundabout way and say it beneath a pretense of selfishness.

It's so obscene, the way that Damian is just _using_ Dick's hand, gliding it against himself, uses both his own hands to hold it like it's his property. But what keeps Dick's pulse pounding is the wordless exchange. That Damian is trying show that he understands how to take, but that he also knows how to give; and Damian wants to give so much, he's always been offering even if no one could quite see it.

The affection inside of Dick wells up, spills over the sides, but it's also making him even harder, and he has to force himself not to start thrusting against the soft skin of Damian's inner thighs, because he's that close already, and just a tiny bit of friction across the sensitive head might be too much. Instead he presses in to nuzzle against Damian's neck, nip at his earlobe, then turn back to ease their lips together. He can smell his own saliva in all the places he's been and growls with satisfaction.

He cherishes the way Damian almost smashes his hips against him, cock burrowing into his palm, and then sliding up against the grooves between his fingers, leaving them sticky. Precome dribbles down across his knuckles, the glossy wetness smearing beneath Damian's fingertips when he shifts his grip on Dick's hand.

Dick can tell he's getting close because he's making more noise again, but these aren't the same restrained bursts. These moans are fuller, longer, with the rolling percussion of some animalistic noise vibrating from the center of his chest.

This time when he comes there is only a weak dribble, and Dick suckles at it, takes in the musky scent, drinks it down, envelops the teen's entire length in one smooth motion. Damian thrashes, oversensitive from his second orgasm in such a short amount of time, but Dick doles out licks like tiny tortures, a playful punishment for the teen's impertinence.

When Damian's breaths slow down to an easier rhythm, Dick feels a hand against his shoulder.

“Okay, your turn.”

Dick lets Damian slip from his lips, trying not to snort. “Thanks for the permission, prince.”

He pushes down the backrest, reclining it as far as it will go before positioning himself over the smaller teen. Then lowers his hips, settling himself into the furrow between Damian's abs. The boy's body radiates a delicious warmth against the underside of his length, and Dick wants Damian to get something, too. Wants to make damn sure that Damian can feel the full heaviness of his cock resting on him, hot and pressing into his belly. That Damian can feel it throb and know how fast Dick's heart is beating.

Damian's stomach is moist with sweat and his first release, and Dick's length is glistening with precome, but when he pushes forward for the first slide, the path is still wonderfully rough. Damian's abdomen rises and falls with agitated, stuttering breaths, and the shifting of his skin only makes for more thrilling terrain. At the same moment that Damian's chest swells up with a gasp, Dick is rocking back in a downstroke, and the head of his cock catches against a raised lip of scar tissue.

He's already barely holding on and that millisecond burst of extra sensation is enough to shatter any figment of control. A hundred glowing lightbulbs behind his eyes flare white hot and explode, leaving his logic blinded and his body swerving only to the tune of desire. A rough moan grinds its way up his throat and fills the car, heat and light flashing everywhere through his veins, his muscles, his bones, and the steady back-and-forth turns into a frenzied rut.

Damian, unprepared for the surge of momentum, cries out in the voice of a drowning man. He hooks his arms onto Dick's shoulders, nails digging into skin, needing something, anything to hold onto, to keep him tethered while he rides it out, trying desperately to meet the thrusts.

Dick pounds on relentlessly, only slowing as he can feel the rising heat in his balls, a warm tingle shivering through his shaft. He's moaning out the boy's name, _Damian, Damian, Damian_ , over and over and coming to pieces. A jet of precome pumps out, slicking up the line of his fucks on the boy's chest, and Damian slides his fingers through the liquid, brings them to his mouth to taste.

Dick growls, slipping his own fingers between the teen's lips jealously, and Damian pants around them, lets his tongue coat them in saliva, bites them, sucks on them with little strangled moans that Dick didn't even know Damian could make.

Bright colors burst and bloom behind his eyelids, and Dick drags himself with strain, elbows and knees quivering beneath his weight. He counts out each thrust of the final stretch, one…two…three… _f-four_ — _oh_ —

The come spurts forth, one thick stream painted across Damian's chest, then another just beside it, and another straight between his pecs; then thinner, weaker shots leaving pearly spray, until he's spilling down, milking himself into a messy puddle above the teen's navel.

Damian sighs in completion as if it had been his own climax, letting go of Dick and collapsing back fully against the reclined seat. The farthest line of come slides back and pools into the dip between his clavicles, and Dick plunges down to lap it up, the bitter-salt taste of himself warm and slippery across his tongue.

He nuzzles his nose against the other's neck, panting his recovery, trying to lay himself down without pressing all his weight onto Damian. Damian shifts, allowing Dick a sliver of space to settle himself.

They lay on their sides, facing one another, the enormity of what has just happened somehow slotting between them, where their skin connects. Dick caresses the curve of Damian's hip, tracing out an idle pattern. The buzzing afterglow melds into the vibrations of the engine.

He nips along the teen's neck, then presses one soft kiss against Damian's cheek. Damian stares at him, mystified, and Dick wonders if it is too strange to have done it; if it's just another case of living life backwards, an action so saccharine it would have been more befitting when Damian was a younger child. But then Damian's eyes melt a little, lashes casting soft shadows down across his cheekbones.

“Grayson,” he says, quietly, and Dick knows.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dick flicks through the mail over bacon and toast, trying to tune out Tim and Damian's bickering. Damian is perched on the stool beside him, pointing a butter knife—it manages to look somewhat threatening, being slathered in strawberry preserves. Sitting across from them, Tim grips the edges of the island countertop with such force that Dick wonders if he'll end up snapping off a bit of the granite.

Sorting past the usual junk and business letters, something colorful falls out of the stack into his lap. Dick smiles with recognition; it's one of Jason's occasional postcards. As usual, it features a picture of their roving brother, along with Kory and Roy. This time they are in the snow, striking a Charlie's Angels pose among frosted evergreens, fingers pointed like pistols. _Sending love from the steppes of Mongolia_ , the back of the custom card reads, followed by three signatures. In the margin a pair of stick figures, one of whom appears to be wearing a Red Robin outfit, take up an obscene position. Dick can't quite identify the other party—the drawing has been scribbled over in Kory's purple glitter gel pen—but the message clearly hits its mark when Damian gleefully presents it.

Tim's face darkens to a violent scarlet and he chokes on his orange juice. He snatches the postcard away, spluttering. He continues to rage all the way to his room, holding the card in front of his face with both hands, the sound of his indignant squawking and stomping fading up the stairs. And with Alfred having gone out for groceries after cooking breakfast for the boys, Dick is left alone with Damian.

An impish smirk adorns Damian's face as he slides into Dick's lap. And although Dick wraps his arms around the teen's waist to accept him, Damian senses the hesitation, receding back to his own stool.

“You have decided to revise your decision.”

“No! I mean, maybe, um.” Dick nervously taps his fork against his plate. “I'm still trying to figure this out, I guess.”

What they had done last night has not ended the world. Hasn't generated any massive global transformations. And really, it hasn't even changed their relationship much, has only revealed the changes that had already been happening. Dick's mind reels as it tries to catch up to where they stand. And it's not just about handling the present, but confronting the looming future as it opens wide with all its mysteries and secrets. Before he realizes it, he's up on his feet, circling through the kitchen restlessly.

“What are we going to do? We can't hide forever and—what'll we do then? Tim's a smart kid—and, _oh God, Bruce_ …”

Damian stands up, blocking Dick's path to end his frantic pacing. “I don't presume to know how best to deal with our…situation,” he admits, as he places his hands against Dick's chest. “But that doesn't mean I'm not prepared to fight for it.”

“Damian…”

The teen's face holds such fierceness that Dick folds him into his arms for a soft kiss. After pulling away he can taste strawberry, sweet stickiness from Damian's waffles, and relishes the way the teen openly stares at his tongue as he licks his lips. But his uneasiness remains.

“It's not that I don't want this…whatever 'this' is…but we have to think about what we need to be— _who_ we need to be,” he says as they both return to their seats at the counter. “And we…what we did last night…what we're doing right now…”

“Grayson, have you forgotten what you taught me? When Father disappeared and you chose me to be your Robin?”

“Damian?”

“I understand that what we are to each other, what this family is…is unconventional—” he catches himself, not needing Dick's raised eyebrows to know how much of an understatement he has made. He huffs, continuing, “But regardless of what others might expect from us, what molds and patterns we are given to follow, and whether we meet those expectations or not—it doesn't mean that our family is broken.”

Dick purses his lips, feeling almost embarrassed by how much comfort he has taken from Damian's little speech. He puts an elbow on the island, resting his chin on the heel of his palm.

“Really? _I_ told you that?”

“Not with that wording. And not so succinctly.” Damian turns away, looking at Dick from the periphery of his vision. “And even if your position on the subject has changed since then—I believe your original findings to hold true.”

Dick hums in amusement. “Wow. I'm pretty wise, aren't I?”

And Dick can see the muscles in Damian's face fighting so hard, trying to make a pout—and failing.

“Don't be an idiot, Grayson.”

Dick wraps a hand around Damian's wrist.

“Damian, is that a smile? Are you _smiling_ , Damian?”

The teen tuts, disgruntled, and snatches Dick by his shirt to give him another taste of strawberry.

When Tim's voice suddenly comes back into range, Dick doesn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed when Damian pushes away. Their disturbed middle brother is still holding onto the postcard, mumbling incoherently as he plops back down on his stool across from them.

Dick puts his hands into his lap believing the moment is over, but feels Damian's grasp seeking him from outside Tim's view. His hand is surreptitiously snatched away, and plunged into the pocket of Damian's sweatpants, and for a horrified moment Dick thinks this is Damian's way of asking for a quick handjob over breakfast. But then, Damian's fingers lace themselves into his.

The bickering soon resumes, and no doubt, as the eldest, Dick ought to be at least trying to break it up. But honestly, Dick is too preoccupied to care.

When Dick squeezes, Damian squeezes back, mid-insult.

A curtain has lifted, revealing a world which had already existed had he only recognized it. And he'll explore it. He'll explore it all, eventually. But for now, he's content to sit in silence, smiling stupidly, fondly, even wondrously down at the nibbled piece of toast on his plate, as if understanding its beauty for the very first time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this almost a year ago and honestly, I'm a little embarrassed of it now. But it was one of my more popular fics over on tumblr, so I figured it ought to be ported over to this side.


End file.
